MFS - The Other News

                        Afternoon Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 16. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 16. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 4.7 activity. More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 112. Source : Here .

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Washington D.C. Friday prayers imam Muhammad Al-'Asi Takes part in IRAN on the International Conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace: Israel Is the Root Of Global Terrorism!  The International Conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace (http://www.peacetribune.com/), hosted by Tehran May 14-15, 2011, was attended by 100 foreigners and 300 local figures.  Among the conferees were  Washington D.C. Friday prayers imam Muhammad Al-'Asi ;senior Muslim cleric in Russia Umar Khazrat Idrisov; British-Islamic Relations Institute director Kamal Al-Halbawi, and Malaysian human rights activist Chandra Mozaffar. The Iranian officials included Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Tashkhiri, head of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought, and Mohammad Hassan Akhtari, secretary-general of the World Assembly of Ahl-al-Bayt and deputy of international affairs in the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.In his May 15 speech at the conference, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel the root cause and main pillar of global terrorism, and said that Tehran constantly stresses the need to overthrow it because the fight against terrorism requires attacks against the bases and symbols of global repression. Ahmadinejad warned at the conference that if Israel continued to exist, the region would be subject to many more decades of threats, occupation, and insecurity. Another cause of global terrorism, he said, was the coming to power of "unjust individuals" in the U.S. and in several European countries. At the same time, Ahmadinejad said that the regimes of the U.S. and its allies would collapse after Israel did, because they were the foundation of the Western world order – which he said would end in light of the awakening and steadfastness of the nations. The West, he maintained, is perpetrating economic terrorism as it loots the resources of Africa and Central America.It was reported that among the issues discussed at the conference were: theoretical principles of terrorism, the typology of terrorism, coordination of efforts in fighting terror, policies adopted by different governments to combat terrorism, real objectives of combating terrorism, terrorist groups, cultural terrorism, cyber-terrorism, media terrorism, and the role of media in fighting terror.Hmmmm......Whas he there with the approval of the Obama regime??Read the full story here.

• Transparent: Obama Official Refuses to Disclose Information About Executive Order on Transparency.(BigGovernment)How genuine can the President’s claims of transparency be when they won’t even discuss the most basic aspects of the people and process involved with the drafting of their Executive Order on transparency?Hmmmm....when will they realise they are dealing with a dictatorship?Read and see the full story here.

• Meet Obama’s New Energy Plan, Same as The Old Plan.(BigGovernment).There seemed to have been a collective sigh of relief across the country. After over two years of waging war on domestic energy production which helped to boost gas prices over four dollars/gallon ($4.58 in my neighborhood), President Obama announced a new energy plan that would allow an increase and acceleration of domestic energy production.Well…that’s until one examines his words. That’s when you realize that the POTUS left himself enough “outs” to make his plan worthless.I am directing the Department of Interior to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, while respecting sensitive areas, and to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid and south Atlantic. We plan to lease new areas in the Gulf of Mexico as well, and work to create new incentives for industry to develop their unused leases both on and offshore.Oh great! Finally drilling at ANWR? Not on your life. The National Petroleum Reserve is not ANWR it’s next the desired drilling area. Kind of like telling a new president that instead of the White House he would have to live at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue.The President didn’t mention drilling in ANWR, he said “respecting sensitive areas,” which was a signal to the important environmentalist constituency, that he did not mean ANWR.One of Ken Salazar’s first acts as Secretary of Interior was canceling 77 Utah oil and gas leases that had gone through seven years of studies, negotiations and land-use planning. In an instant, he eliminated hundreds of jobs, terminated access to vital oil and gas deposits, and deprived taxpayers of millions in lease bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues. In short he was making us more defendant on foreign oil instead of exploiting our reserves which are larger than any other country on this planet.What Obama’s Secretary of Interior did instead was to extend the environmental process. In January 2010, Secretary Salazar announced a new policy expanding environmental reviews before leasing federal lands to the oil and gas industry.There was no mention of changing this delaying policy in his words yesterday. Dooming any potential new oil reserves to years of federal roadblocks.There was also no mention by the President of our vast shale oil reserves.The Green River shale formation in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, has an estimated 800 billion barrels of oil, which is three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. In the Bakken oil shale formation in the Dakotas, there are an estimated 20 billion barrels of oil.What seemed as an epiphany by President Obama yesterday was nothing of the kind, it was simply a collection of empty words, as was his earlier promise to lift his oil moratorium in the Gulf, which resulted only in decreased production and many of his other promises, such as his signature health plan not causing people change providers.So at least with his words on Saturday, President Obama’s new energy plan is “same as the old plan.”Hmmmm......Snake oil in different containers is still 'Snakeoil'!Read the full story here.

• FBI, DHS, NYPD pander to Muslims in Brooklyn – program will expand across U.S.(CreepingSharia). via Muslim Youths, Law Enforcement Bridge Gaps In Brooklyn « CBS New York.NEW YORK (CBS 2) — Federal law enforcement officials tried to break down barriers with the Muslim community in Brooklyn on Saturday, with a special program designed to foster a culture of understanding.When 17-year-old Bilal Amjad strapped on a bulletproof vest, he got more than just a feeling of security, reports CBS 2’s Kathryn Brown. He began to feel accepted.“There’s a lot of stuff on the news, that Muslim people are all bad – but we’re not all like that,” Amjad said.Amjad was one of several hundred Muslim youths attending a day-long, hands-on program with law enforcement agencies including the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, New York State Police and the NYPD.Each side of the program was looking to break through stereotypes to keep communities together.“A lot of law enforcement probably look at us in a bad way, but we’re not like that,” Amjad said.“What we’re trying to do is to show them that they have opportunities in public service and government, and to show them the importance and respect that their faith has,” FBI Supervisory Special Agent Timothy Flannery said.Many at the event said that too many times, the Muslim community and law enforcement officials interact only when reacting to a dangerous situation, and that has helped to foster tense relations.“This is why we’re building these bridges – because we want to close those gaps where they law enforcement feels, ‘oh, these are Muslim kids, and perhaps they might be thinking something.’” Mohammad Razvi, executive director of the Council of Peoples Organization, said.The program, he said, was an opportunity to bridge those gaps.“These are Americans kids – they stand in front of this American flag and say, ‘we are Americans,’” Razvi said.The event in Brooklyn was the first of its kind in the country, but organizers said they’re looking to expand to other areas soon, beginning with Washington, D.C.More than 500 kids, and a dozen mosques and schools, took part in Saturday’s program.Law enforcement hasn’t reached out ot any other demographic in the U.S. with this “first of its kind” program. There are programs for Americans, and then there are programs for Muslims in America. That’s how Islam works.The sponsoring group is new to us but they have co-sponsored events with the most notorious of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood linked groups and individuals in the U.S.Hmmmm....."We don't want to take over your country"?Read the full story here.

• Virginia inmate wins legal jihad, submits prison to all kinds of sharia.(CreepingSharia).The coup de grace for Virginia’s prison system (and taxpayers), losers of the legal jihad. The government prison system is now forced to provide:

•Muslim reading materials

•Muslim CDs and DVD’s

•$2,000

•$2,500 on Islamic library materials for the Greensville Correctional Center

•hire a Muslim inmate to work in the library

•inmates at Greensville will be allowed to donate religious materials to the library

•Al-Amin was even allowed to submit his own list of Islamic reading materials, movies and CDs

•department also agreed to allow Al-Amin to use his religious name

•allow inmates to assist in the preparation of religious meals

Everything a prison needs to be a jihad teaching factory. Even a sympathetic interviewee saw how bad the settlement was and provided the understatement of the day: “That’s a terrible settlement. It sets a very bad precedent.” Rashid Qawi Al-Amin succeeded where thousands of Virginia prison inmates before him have failed: He prevailed in a lawsuit against the government.Al-Amin won a settlement with the state that forces the prison system to supply him, and the Greensville Correctional Center library, with Muslim reading materials, CDs and DVDs. He’ll also receive $2,000.Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office decided to settle the seven-year legal battle after a series of court rulings in Al-Amin’s favor. The state admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement but did agree to perform eight different acts to satisfy Al-Amin’s claims.While prisons should allow access to any mainstream religion, he said, officials need to be aware of the separation of church and state.“Public funds should not be used to purchase sectarian materials,” he said.Larry Traylor, director of communications for the Department of Corrections, declined to discuss the specifics of the Al-Amin case, but he supplied The Virginian-Pilot with the department’s rules concerning the practice of religion by inmates.The department has a Faith Review Committee to review the validity of various religions that are recommended by the institutions to be recognized, he said.The state Attorney General Office, which defended Greensville and its food service contractor in the case, declined to comment but did provide the newspaper with a copy of the settlement.Hmmmm....Meanwhile in Brittain they realised that Prison is a breading ground for Islamic extremists.Read the full story here.

• Former Pakistani FM: Islamabad-Washington Ties Darkening.(FarsNews)."The relations between Pakistan and the US have reached their lowest levels these days," Qureshi told FNA on Monday, adding that there is a wall of mistrust between the two sides at present. Yet, the former Pakistani top diplomat stated that the current decline in the bilateral relations between the two countries would likely prove beneficial to the Pakistani people. "Nations make hard decisions in hard times," he continued. Qureshi also underscored that "betterment of ties between the two countries should take place on the basis of mutual respect".A senior Pakistani politician announced in April that Islamabad planned to lodge a complaint with the international bodies against the United States' drone attacks on its citizens. "The issue of the US drone attacks will be raised at human rights organizations and other relevant (international) bodies," member of Pakistan's National Assembly Ahsan Iqbal told FNA. "Pakistan will take legal action against the US over the issue," added Iqbal, who also speaks for the Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N). The Pakistani lawmaker described the US drone attacks as "violation of Pakistan's sovereignty", and underlined that the entire Pakistani nation is against these attack. Earlier in April, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha urged Washington to stop air raids on Pakistan and end the US espionage operations in the country. The issue was raised by Shuja Pasha in a meeting with Leon Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Political observers had warned that if the US ignores Islamabad's abovementioned demands, the Pakistani Army and the ISI's possible reaction would likely include an end to Islamabad's cooperation with the US. Read the full story here.

• Pakistan increased it's Nuclear stockpile by 100-200%,why Pakistan's Nuclear Surge?(DailyBeast).Photos obtained by Newsweek reveal a more aggressive buildup than previously known. So why does Washington still stay mum? Andrew Bast on the White House’s thorny next steps. Plus, A. Q. Khan, the “father” of the Pakistan bomb, on why his nation deserves to have nuclear weapons.Even in the best of times, Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program warrants alarm. But these are perilous days. At a moment of unprecedented misgiving between Washington and Islamabad, new evidence suggests that Pakistan’s nuclear program is barreling ahead at a furious clip.According to new commercial-satellite imagery obtained exclusively by Newsweek, Pakistan is aggressively accelerating construction at the Khushab nuclear site, about 140 miles south of Islamabad. The images, analysts say, prove Pakistan will soon have a fourth operational reactor, greatly expanding plutonium production for its nuclear-weapons program.“The buildup is remarkable,” says Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security. “And that nobody in the U.S. or in the Pakistani government says anything about this—especially in this day and age—is perplexing.”Unlike Iran, which has yet to produce highly enriched uranium, or North Korea, which has produced plutonium but still lacks any real weapons capability, Pakistan is significantly ramping up its nuclear-weapons program. Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration, puts it bluntly: “You’re talking about Pakistan even potentially passing France at some point. That’s extraordinary.It’s dangerous because Pakistan is also stockpiling fissile material, or bomb fuel. Since Islamabad can mine uranium on its own territory and has decades of enrichment know-how—beginning with the work of nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan—the potential for production is significant.Although the White House declined to comment, a senior U.S. congressional official who works on nuclear issues told Newsweek that intelligence estimates suggest Pakistan has already developed enough fissile material to produce more than 100 warheads and manufacture between eight and 20 weapons a year. “There’s no question,” the official says, “it’s the fastest-growing program in the world.”For now, the White House appears to have made a tacit tradeoff with Islamabad: for your cooperation in Afghanistan, we’ll leave you to your own nuclear devices. “People bristle at the suggestion, but it follows, doesn’t it?” says Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, formerly the CIA’s chief officer handling terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. “The irony is that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the money we’re giving them to fight terrorism, could inadvertently aggravate the very problem we’re trying to stop. After all, terrorism and nukes is the worst-case scenario.”Hmmmm.....Or Obama and U.S. Foreign policy is the worst-case scenario?Pakistan ...Turkey.....Iran.Read the full story here.

• Why George Mitchell failed.(Jpost).By TawfikHamid.Special US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, the man charged with reconciling the Israelis and Palestinians, resigned this weekend.Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader in the US, failed to achieve peace between the two sides. There’s no disgrace in that – the line of failed envoys is long and well-known. He successfully brokered peace in Northern Ireland, but couldn’t even get things started in the Middle East.The question is, why? Obviously, it’s impossible to solve a problem without addressing and treating its true cause. Approaching the Arab-Israeli conflict from the perspective that it is about land, so that giving more land to the Palestinians will solve the problem, is a failed endeavor.Israel has already given Egypt the whole of the Sinai, and got nothing in return except a cold peace and rising anti-Semitism in the country. Similarly the disengagement from Gaza did not magically lead to a decline in the wave of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world.Pro-Palestinian Muslim demonstrators across the world repeatedly use the chant “Khyber Khyber Ya Yahood... Gaish Muhammad Sawfa Yaood,” which reminds the Jews that the army of Muhammad is coming back for a repeat of what was done to the Jewish Khyber tribe.According to authentic Islamic history books, the Islamic army, led by Muhammad, annihilated the Jewish tribe of Khyber, raping its women and killing all its men.Such barbaric statements against the Jews have been used by many in the Muslim world, and even inside the US and Europe. Sadly the chant was also used on Friday by thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.The Hamas charter also calls for the destruction of Israel. This violent principle has its roots in the traditional Islamic teaching, based on Hadith books, that encourages the killing of all Jews before the end of days.Until US envoys to the Middle East realize that the problem in the eyes of the Palestinians and their supporters is not the borders of Israel but the very existence of the country, all future missions will similarly fail. Solving the Arab-Israeli conflict must be done initially at the theological rather than the political level, as the former is impeding the latter.It is unfair to ask Israel to trust those who shamefully advocate the killing of Jews, and claim that Islamic annihilation of the Jews by an Islamic army is a model that must be emulated today.The problem is not only in the existence of violent teachings in historical Islamic texts, but also in the dangerous desire of many Islamists and violent Islamic scholars to revive such violence in modern times. Violent texts exist in other religions as well, but we do not generally see such destructive desire to use the texts to justify killing others, and we rarely hear about modern scholars of other faiths who advocate using such texts literally.The problem is that this disastrous anti-Semitic religious dimension is not limited to verses in books, but is also propagated by a powerful media machine that utilizes vicious, Nazi-style propaganda across the Muslim world. Publishing dehumanizing cartoons in the mainstream media, and blaming Jews for nearly every problem in the world has become much too common in the leading Arab media over the past few decades.It is virtually impossible to promote any form of peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict without reducing such levels of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world.Until future envoys to the Middle East understand the religious dimension of the problem, and that the Arab- Israeli conflict is not about borders but about the existence of the state of Israel, all future attempts to make peace in the area will fail.The writer is an Islamic thinker and reformer, and a one-time Islamic extremist from Egypt. He was a member of the terrorist organization JI with Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who later became the second-in-command of al-Qaida. He is currently a senior fellow and chairman of the study of Islamic radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. www.tawfikhamid.com.Hmmmm.....The Problem is ISLAM Dummy!Read the full story here.

• International justice becoming a tool for settling scores – Russian constitutional judge.(RT).“Hailing US initiatives in the fields of fighting corruption, terrorism and drug trafficking, at the same time we have to admit that some of these initiatives enlarge the jurisdiction of American courts too much, almost to the whole of the world.” World powers more and more often use international justice as a means to settle personal scores, believes chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin.He made the statement in his address at an international conference dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials in St. Petersburg.“Excessive use of the institutions of international justice can lead to a situation when such justice ceases to be an international arbitrator but turns into a mechanism in the hands of one of the superpowers or a group of powerful states,” he said. As a result, he believes justice can soon be substituted with “trivial settlement of scores in the form of court verdicts.”Specifically, Zorkin talked about the United States, which in his opinion attempts to extend its jurisdiction to other countries making them obey American laws.“Hailing US initiatives in the fields of fighting corruption, terrorism and drug trafficking, at the same time we have to admit that some of these initiatives enlarge the jurisdiction of American courts too much, almost to the whole of the world,” Zorkin added. In his opinion, national legislation can be replaced by international jurisdiction only in a case of collapse of national statehood.Returning to the main topic of the conference, he cited the example of Nazi Germany and said that was exactly the case when an international tribunal was needed. Read the full story here.

• Iran executes Jewish - American woman.(Ynet).Human rights agency claims Israel-born Adiva Soleyman Kalimia executed at Iranian prison on alleged counts of adultery last March. An Israel-born Jewish woman of Iranian descent and her Armenian Christian husband were executed in Iran over two months ago, an Iranian human rights group reported last Thursday. The Human Rights Activists News Agency claimed Adiva Mirza Soleyman Kalimia and her husband Varjan Petrosian were hung on March 14 at Evin Prison, known for its political prisoners' wing, Yedioth Ahronoth reported. The human rights group quoted the Iranian court's confirmation of the executions. Two other men and one woman who remained unidentified were also executed along with the couple. Relatives of the woman said they do not know why she was killed. Soleyman Kalimia was born in Jerusalem in 1956 to a Jewish family of Iranian descent. At one point she moved to Miami and eventually received US citizenship. According to her family, she had two passports: American and European. Her son lives in Europe. In the past few years, for reasons unknown to her family, Soleyman Kalimia began to visit Iran. She was able to enter and leave the country three times, before she was eventually arrested and sent to prison. The official cause for her arrest was adultery, from what little information that is known to her family. Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Michael Posner, spoke before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations last Wednesday, and discussed the human rights' situation in Iran.He mentioned that "a Jewish woman and her Armenian-Christian husband were reportedly executed based on undisclosed charges.Mass executions of mainly ethnic minority prisoners have been carried out without their families’ knowledge; Iran has executed at least 135 people this year."Hmmmm.....Scripture quoting President Obama silent about Iran,the buddy of Erdogan, who in his turn is Obama's buddy.Read the full story here.

• Report: Aspiring Islamic Dictator Turkey threatens to leave UN Gaza flotilla inquiry panel over 'Israel-favored' draft.(Haaretz).Turkey threatened Friday to drop out of a United Nations panel investigating Israel's deadly raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May last year, saying the wording of the draft report was in favor of Israel, Turkish daily Hürriyet reported. The report said that Ankara believed the panel was favoring the Israeli view, as its wording fell short of saying Israel violated international law when its naval commanders boarded the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish-sponsored Gaza-bound aid flotilla.“There is a crack on the panel. The talks are not going well," the Hürriyet Daily News reported a diplomatic source as saying, but added that the rough draft "is being worked on.” Israel and Turkey were both handed a draft of the UN report ahead of its intended public release this month, but Turkey's threat to disassociate itself from the report unless radical changes were made has delayed the announcement of the panel’s findings.UN Secretary-General Ban ki-moon set up the four-member review panel in August 2010. The panel is led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer, who is also an expert in international maritime law, and includes one representative each from Israel and Turkey. The Israeli member of the panel is Joseph Ciechanover, former Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Turkish member is Ozdem Sanberk, a former diplomat who held senior positions in the Turkish Foreign Ministry and the United Nations. The panel listened to the representatives for the last time late-April and was expected to make its findings public this month.Hmmmm......Is There no longer a rule of law within Turkey,jailing Journalists ,rejecting UN panel rulings?Read the full story here.

• Egyptian doctors fail to complete angioplasty on Mubarak’s wife after suspected heart attack.(Al-Arabia).Doctors failed to complete an angioplasty on the wife of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a state newspaper said on Monday, potentially prolonging a stay in hospital after anti-corruption authorities ordered Suzanne Thabet Mubarak’s detention.Al-Ahram newspaper cited medical officials as saying doctors at a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh had been due to undertake the angioplasty on Sunday evening.The report did not say why the catheter procedure had failed and did not give a date for any new attempt. Typically, an angioplasty procedure fails when arterial blockages are extremely severe.Angioplasty involves inserting a catheter from the groin to the heart in order to drill open arterial blockages. After blockages have been open, a stent is usually put in place in order to prevent restenosis, or regrowth of the plaque.An anti-corruption agency ordered on Friday that the former first lady be detained for 15 days to investigate charges she abused her husband’s influence for unlawful personal gain. The couple denies the charges.She was admitted to the hospital on Friday after suffering symptoms of a heart attack.It was unlikely Mrs. Mubarak would be transferred to a prison facility in the short term.“Preparing the Tora (prison) hospital (in Cairo) to receive critical cases could take months,” said Nazih Gadallah, who heads the prison service and is an aide to Egyptian Interior Minister Mansour al-Essawy, in remarks broadcast by Al Arabiya.Read the full story here.

• Kenyan marathon star falls to death,or was it a coverup for murder?(Al-Jazeera).Olympic champion Samuel Wanjiru dead after balcony plunge, as police say they are still investigating whether he jumped.Samuel Wanjiru, Kenya's Olympic marathon champion, has died after falling from the balcony of his home in the town of Nyahururu, Kenya, police say.Police said they were attempting to ascertain whether the 24-year-old Kenyan had deliberately killed himself by jumping off the balcony. They said that he had suffered internal injuries after the fall, late on Sunday, and was confirmed dead by doctors at a nearby hospital."I can confirm that Wanjiru is dead. It is not yet clear whether it was a suicide, if he jumped out of rage, or what caused him to fall to the ground," Jaspher Ombati, the regional police chief for the area, told Reuters.Nyahururu is located in the Rift Valley, some 150km northwest of Nairobi, Kenya's capital."He jumped from his first floor balcony to the ground. He was bleeding from the nose and the mouth, and may have suffered internal injuries," the police chief said."Doctors at the district hospital tried to resuscitate him in vain," said Ombati.Police say they are investigating the possibility of a 'love triangle' that could have been behind Wanjiru's death.Ombati said Triza Njeri, Wanjiru's wife, had come home on Sunday to find him in bed with another woman. She then locked the couple in the bedroom and ran outside.The police chief said that Wanjiru then leapt from the balcony. He added that Njeri and Wanjiru's companion are now assisting police in their investigation.Hmmm.....Yeah.....Whatevah!Read the full fairytale story here.